To probe deeper into the subnuclear structure of matter, physicists over the last 50 years have developed a remarkably sophisticated technology of high‐energy accelerators. By design, these accelerators have operated at relatively low currents, primarily to avoid complications due to electric fields generated by the charged‐particle beams themselves. Machines such as the linear accelerator at Stanford University (SLAC) produce electron beams with energies as high as 32 GeV and peak currents of about 120 milliamps. Although of fairly low current, these devices have proven extremely successful in high‐energy physics experiments, where one can irradiate a target over an extended period of time to get a statistically significant number of collisional events.
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February 1985
February 01 1985
Ultra‐High‐Current Electron Induction Accelerators
American and Soviet physicists are building accelerators that use time‐varying magnetic fields to generate electron pulses of many kiloamps for some unconventional applications.
Physics Today 38 (2), 58–69 (1985);